The Blairs did it

Very interesting post by Harry Smeltzer (pointing back at Mark Grimsley) on the subject of the much-hyped "public pressure" demanding an advance in the summer of 1861.

I have myself read every newspaper available published at the time in the New England region that is stored in the Boston public library and I not only found no such clamor but rather the opposite. After the Union defeat at Manassas, the Boston Herald editorialized hat it was those wicked, conniving Blairs who drove Lincoln into this.